Retired Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse Takes on the Iran Deal in WSJ
In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, retired Harvard professor Ruth Wisse draws a clear connection between anti-Semitism and oppression, writing, “Anti-Jewish aggression is always aimed at the self-accountable way of life that the Jews represent. ‘Death to the Jews!’ is a call to arms against Western liberal democracies; that is why in Iran the cry is often accompanied by ‘Death to America!’”
On the proposed nuclear deal with Iran, Wisse writes:
The Iranian regime is currently the world’s leading exponent of anti-Jewish racism. Comparisons to Nazi Germany are always a last resort, since even with all the evidence before us it is hard to fathom the evil the Nazis perpetrated. Yet Iran’s frank genocidal ambition dwarfs its predecessor’s. Whereas Adolf Hitler and Reinhard Heydrich had to plot the “Final Solution” in secrecy, using euphemisms for their intended annihilation of the Jews of Europe, Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweets that Israel “has no cure but to be annihilated.” Iran’s leaders, relishing how small Israel is, call it a “one bomb state,” and until the time arrives to deliver that bomb, they sponsor anti-Israel terrorism through Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militias.
[…]Yet when it comes to the world’s most widespread and ideologically driven racism, President Obama seems to have a blind spot, initiating a nuclear deal with the fanatical anti-Jewish regime in Tehran, despite what he calls Iran’s “bad behavior.” The euphemism this time is his, not that of the perpetrators, and it camouflages their intentions even if they won’t.
Wisse cuts to the bottom line on the agreement, “This is the first time the U.S. will have deliberately entered into a pact with a country committed to annihilating another people—a pact that doesn’t even require formal repudiation of the country’s genocidal aims.”
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